21.2. Other edX Resources

Learners, course teams, researchers, developers: the edX community includes groups with a range of reasons for using the platform and objectives to accomplish. To help members of each group learn about what edX offers, reach goals, and solve problems, edX provides a variety of information resources.

To help you find what you need, browse the edX offerings in the following categories.

All members of the edX community are encouraged to make use of the resources described in this preface. We welcome your feedback on these edX information resources. Contact the edX documentation team at docs@edx.org.

21.2.1. Resources for edx.org Learners

21.2.1.1. Documentation

The EdX Learner’s Guide is available on the docs.edx.org web page. This guide is also available when you select Help while you are in a course, and from your dashboard of enrolled courses.

21.2.1.2. In a Course

All edX courses have a discussion page where you can ask questions and interact with other students and with the course team: select Discussion. Many courses also offer a wiki for additional resources and materials: select Wiki.

Other resources might also be available, such as a course-specific Facebook page or Twitter feed. Be sure to check the Home page for your course as well as the Discussion and Wiki pages.

21.2.1.3. Resources on the edx.org Website

To help you get started with the edX learning experience, edX offers a course (of course!). You can find the edX Demo course on the edx.org website.

When you are working in an edX course, you can select Support to access a help center with frequently asked questions and answers.

If you still have questions or suggestions, you can get help from the edX support team: select Support, select Contact at the bottom of any edX web page, or send an email message to info@edx.org.

For opportunities to meet others who are interested in edX courses, check the edX Global Community meetup group.

21.2.2. The edX Partner Portal

The edX Partner Portal is the destination for partners to learn, connect, and collaborate with one another. Partners can explore rich resources and share success stories and best practices while staying up-to-date with important news and updates.

To use the edX Partner Portal, you must register and request verification as an edX partner. If you are an edX partner and have not used the edX Partner Portal, follow these steps.

  1. Visit partners.edx.org, and select Create New Account.
  2. Select Request Partner Access, then fill in your personal details.
  3. Select Create New Account. You will receive a confirmation email with your account access within 24 hours.

After you create an account, you can sign up to receive email updates about edX releases, news from the product team, and other announcements. For more information, see Release Announcements by Email.

21.2.2.1. Course Team Support in the edX Partner Portal

EdX partner course teams can get technical support in the edX Partner Portal. To access technical support, submit a support ticket, or review any support tickets you have created, go to partners.edx.org and select Course Staff Support at the top of the page. This option is available on every page in the Partner Portal.

21.2.3. The Open edX Portal

The Open edX Portal is the destination for learning about hosting an Open edX instance, extending the edX platform, and contributing to Open edX. In addition, the Open edX Portal provides product announcements and other community resources.

All users can view content on the Open edX Portal without creating an account and logging in.

To comment on blog posts or the edX roadmap, or subscribe to email updates, you must create an account and log in. If you do not have an account, follow these steps.

  1. Visit open.edx.org/user/register.
  2. Fill in your personal details.
  3. Select Create New Account. You are then logged in to the Open edX Portal.

21.2.3.1. Release Announcements by Email

To receive and share product and release announcements by email, you can subscribe to announcements on one of the edX portal sites.

  1. Create an account on the Open edX Portal or the edX Partner Portal as described above.
  2. Select Community and then Announcements.
  3. Under Subscriptions, select the different types of announcements that you want to receive through email. You might need to scroll down to see these options.
  4. Select Save.

You will now receive email messages when new announcements of the types you selected are posted.

21.2.4. System Status

For system-related notifications from the edX operations team, including outages and the status of error reports. On Twitter, you can follow @edxstatus.

Current system status and the uptime percentages for edX servers, along with the Twitter feed, are published on the edX Status web page.

21.2.5. Resources for edx.org Course Teams

Course teams include faculty, instructional designers, course staff, discussion moderators, and others who contribute to the creation and delivery of courses on edx.org or edX Edge.

21.2.5.1. The edX Course Creator Series

The courses in the edX Course Creator Series provide foundational knowledge about using the edX platform to deliver educational experiences. These courses are available on edx.org.

21.2.5.1.1. edX101: Overview of Creating a Course

The edX101 course is designed to provide a high-level overview of the course creation and delivery process using Studio and the edX LMS. It also highlights the extensive capabilities of the edX platform.

21.2.5.1.2. StudioX: Creating a Course with edX Studio

After you complete edX101, StudioX provides more detail about using Studio to create a course, add different types of content, and configure your course to provide an optimal online learning experience.

21.2.5.1.3. BlendedX: Blended Learning with edX

In BlendedX you explore ways to blend educational technology with traditional classroom learning to improve educational outcomes.

21.2.5.1.4. VideoX: Creating Video for the edX Platform

VideoX presents strategies for creating videos for course content and course marketing. The course provides step-by-step instructions for every stage of video creation, and includes links to exemplary sample videos created by edX partner institutions.

21.2.5.2. Documentation

Documentation for course teams is available on the docs.edx.org web page.

  • Building and Running an edX Course is a comprehensive guide with concepts and procedures to help you build a course in Studio and then use the Learning Management System (LMS) to run a course.

    You can access this guide by selecting Help in Studio or from the instructor dashboard in the LMS.

  • Using edX Insights describes the metrics, visualizations, and downloadable .csv files that course teams can use to gain information about student background and activity.

  • The edX Release Notes summarize the changes in each new version of deployed software.

These guides open in your web browser. The left side of each page includes a Search docs field and links to the contents of that guide. To open or save a PDF version, select v: latest at the lower right of the page, then select PDF.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

21.2.5.3. Email

To receive and share information by email, course team members can:

  • Subscribe to announcements and other new topics in the edX Partner Portal or the Open edX Portal. For information about how to subscribe, see Release Announcements through the Open edX Portal.
  • Join the openedx-studio Google group to ask questions and participate in discussions with peers at other edX partner organizations and edX staffers.

21.2.5.4. Wikis and Web Sites

The edX product team maintains public product roadmaps on the Open edX Portal and the edX Partner Portal.

The edX Partner Support site for edX partners hosts discussions that are monitored by edX staff.

21.2.6. Resources for Researchers

At each partner institution, the data czar is the primary point of contact for information about edX data. To set up a data czar for your institution, contact your edX partner manager.

Data for the courses on edx.org and edX Edge is available to the data czars at our partner institutions, and then used by database experts, statisticians, educational investigators, and others for educational research.

Resources are also available for members of the Open edX community who are collecting data about courses running on their sites and conducting research projects.

21.2.6.1. Documentation

The edX Research Guide is available on the docs.edx.org web page. Although it is written primarily for data czars and researchers at partner institutions, this guide can also be a useful reference for members of the Open edX community.

The edX Research Guide opens in your web browser, with a Search docs field and links to sections and topics on the left side of each page. To open or save a PDF version, select v: latest at the lower right of the page, and then select PDF.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

21.2.6.2. Discussion Forums and Email

Researchers, edX data czars, and members of the global edX data and analytics community can post and discuss questions in our public research forum: the openedx-analytics Google group.

The edX partner portal also offers community forums, including a Research and Analytics topic, for discussions among edX partners.

Important

Please do not post sensitive data to public forums.

Data czars who have questions that involve sensitive data, or that are institution specific, can send them by email to data.support@edx.org with a copy to your edX partner manager.

21.2.6.3. Wikis

The edX Analytics team maintains the Open edX Analytics wiki, which includes links to periodic release notes and other resources for researchers.

The edx-tools wiki lists publicly shared tools for working with the edX platform, including scripts for data analysis and reporting.

21.2.7. Resources for Developers

Software engineers, system administrators, and translators work on extending and localizing the code for the edX platform.

21.2.7.1. Documentation

Documentation for developers is available on the docs.edx.org web page.

  • The edX Platform Developer’s Guide includes guidelines for contributing to the Open edX project, options for extending the Open edX platform, instrumenting analytics, and testing.
  • Installing, Configuring, and Running the Open edX Platform provides procedures for getting an edX developer stack (devstack) and production stack (fullstack) operational.
  • Open edX XBlock Tutorial guides developers through the process of creating an XBlock, and explains the concepts and anatomy of XBlocks.
  • Open edX XBlock API Guide provides reference information about the XBlock API.
  • edX Open Learning XML Guide provides guidelines for building edX courses with OLX (open learning XML). Note that this guide is currently an alpha version.
  • edX Data Analytics API provides reference information for using the data analytics API to build applications to view and analyze learner activity in your course.
  • edX Platform APIs provide reference information for building applications to view course information and videos and work with user and enrollment data.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.

21.2.7.2. GitHub

These are the main edX repositories on GitHub.

Additional repositories are used for other projects. Our contributor agreement, contributor guidelines and coding conventions, and other resources are available in these repositories.

21.2.7.3. Getting Help

The Getting Help page in the Open edX Portal lists different ways that you can ask, and get answers to, questions.

21.2.7.4. Wikis and Web Sites

The Open edX Portal is the entry point for new contributors.

The edX Engineering team maintains an open Confluence wiki, which provides insights into the plans, projects, and questions that the edX Open Source team is working on with the community.

The edx-tools wiki lists publicly shared tools for working with the edX platform, including scripts and helper utilities.

21.2.8. Resources for Open edX

Hosting providers, platform extenders, core contributors, and course staff all use Open edX. EdX provides release-specific documentation, as well as the latest version of all guides, for Open edX users. The following documentation is available.

  • Open edX Release Notes provides information on the contents of Open edX releases.
  • Building and Running an Open edX Course is a comprehensive guide with concepts and procedures to help you build a course in Studio, and then use the Learning Management System (LMS) to run a course.
  • Open edX Learner’s Guide helps students use the Open edX LMS to take courses. This guide is available on the docs.edx.org web page. Because learners are currently only guided to this resource through the course, we encourage course teams to provide learners with links to this guide as needed in course updates or discussions.
  • Installing, Configuring, and Running the Open edX Platform provides information about installing and using devstack and fullstack.
  • The edX Platform Developer’s Guide includes guidelines for contributing to the Open edX project, options for extending the Open edX platform, instrumenting analytics, and testing.
  • Open edX XBlock Tutorial guides developers through the process of creating an XBlock, and explains the concepts and anatomy of XBlocks.
  • Open edX XBlock API Guide provides reference information on the XBlock API.
  • EdX Open Learning XML Guide provides guidelines for building edX courses with Open Learning XML (OLX). Note that this guide is currently an alpha version.
  • EdX Data Analytics API provides reference information for using the data analytics API to build applications to view and analyze learner activity in your course.
  • EdX Platform APIs provide reference information for building applications to view course information and videos and work with user and enrollment data.

Note

If you use the Safari browser, be aware that it does not support the search feature for the HTML versions of the edX guides. This is a known limitation.